Meta companions with Microsoft to convey Groups, Home windows apps, and video games to Quest gadgets • TechCrunch

Meta in the present day introduced a partnership with Microsoft to convey new content material, together with Home windows apps and Groups tie-ins, to Meta’s metaverse {hardware} efforts. Throughout Meta’s Join convention this morning, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that Microsoft Groups will combine with Quest gadgets and that Microsoft will present a strategy to stream Home windows apps to Meta’s headsets. Nadella additionally revealed that Microsoft’s streaming recreation service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, will arrive on Quest gadgets someday inside the coming months.

“We’re bringing the Microsoft Groups immersive assembly expertise to Meta Quest to be able to give folks new methods to attach with one another,” Nadella stated, noting that customized avatars will finally come to the expertise. Horizon Workrooms, Meta’s VR area for collaboration, will join with Groups, he added — permitting folks to hitch a Groups assembly instantly from Workrooms.

“Now, you may join, share and collaborate as if you’re collectively in particular person,” Nadella added.

On the Home windows finish, Nadella stated that Microsoft 365 will come to Quest in a method that lets customers work together with content material from productiveness apps like Phrase, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The Verge’s Tom Warren notes that these aren’t full-blown variations of apps designed for VR, importantly; they’re Progressive Net Apps relatively.

“You [will] have a brand new strategy to securely stream your entire Home windows expertise, together with all of the customized app content material settings to your VR gadget with the total energy [of Windows,]” Nadella stated.

As for Xbox Cloud Gaming, on the Quest, it streams video games to a 2D VR display screen, supporting current Xbox controllers. However Nadella hinted that further options would possibly arrive down the road.